Being Green...

Very US based, but, equally, very, very true, no matter where you come from!!

I see the irony though: the USA was the biggest "provider" of "convenience" goods in their day (latterly Asia).

I recall the day my mother came home from a shopping trip (not for *us* but for the elderly people she worked with) and commented how M&S were now selling "bread n butter pudding". She was aghast!! "They are selling foods made from 'leftovers'!? They'll be selling corned beef hash next "

Erm, yup!

And always remember: the "youth" will always think they invented sex

 

Its all true, but just a tiny bit flawed.

I can remember as a young kid being a passenger in my dad's car as we drove past all the works to get anywhere. Seeing all the clouds of filth spewing forth from the many chimneys. I also remember being taught at school that the industry is ok because the chimneys were tall enough so that all the fumes just blew away.

Where to? I know the ordinary folks of bygone generations can't be blamed. They all had to make a living, and people didn't have as much voice back then (no internet, no global communications for the masses etc), but I do wonder how come nobody ever stopped to ponder the question, where do the fumes blow away to?

 

We found that out in the 70's & 80's when huge swathes of Northern European Forests started to die off

 

But, your argument does not take account of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI); of which, the post war UK was heavily subscribed by the US and partly due to the hold the US had over the UK due to war debts.

The *real* question is not, "Where do those fumes go to", but, who invested in those fumes in the first place? And that is a part of the cradle-to-grave argument of Corporate Social Responsibility.

It is also one of the major arguments in current "Greenhouse Gases" thinking; each country/area is alloted a quota of "emissions" by the WTO; it is possible for companies to set up business in areas/countries and "trade" their greenhouse gases consumption to counterbalance their home country "allocation".

Any "flaw" in thinking is when people generally attribute fumes/greenhouse gases to a localised level yet not addressing the global question of "where do the fumes go?". Currently, the bigger question has to be: "who takes responsibility for *where* the fumes are permitted to go" In other words: just because a company has a bottom line income, which can exceed that of a small country's GPR, should they be permitted to abuse that small countries "green house gas allowance" simply due to FDI?

It's an ethical dilema: but one which ultimately affects us all!

 

That's what I meant. At the same school, by the same teachers, examples of things I was taught include:

* The world is a roughly spherical object surrounded by a thin layer of atmosphere, then vacuum.
* Gravity ordinarily prevents anything leaving the planet.
* The planet has a finite size
* Fumes from industry are ok because they just blow away.

Now I'm sure the teachers weren't thick. They must have made the same obvious connection that I did. When scientists announced in the 1980s that we'd made a hole in the ozone, that the rain contained sulphuric acid, and that large areas of forest in Norway and Denmark were dying of poisoning, the only surprise for me was that everyone else seemed surprised.

Investors aren't to blame. We should be grateful that work was created for people. The investors wouldn't have invested in something that wouldn't be profitable, and to make profit you need consumers to buy things.

 

These will be the same people that will be suprised when the north atlantic conveyor turns off & the glaciers start rolling again. There will be comments like "But I thought they said Global Warming?"

Ironically, its the warming that will cause the cooling,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/24/greenland-ice-sheet-thaw-nasa

The ice on land, unlike the sea ice, is fresh water. All that pouring onto the North Atlantic will stop the warm current sinking & just turn off the conveyor belt.